Missouri Governor vetoes bill to let motorcyclists ride without helmets.
Health, law enforcement officials argued change would increase fatalities.
Governor Jay Nixon (D) MO
Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday dashed the hopes of many Missouri motorcycle riders by taking the veto pen to legislation that would have relaxed the state's helmet laws.
Nixon cited rider safety and the specter of soaring health care costs as reasons for his veto of Senate Bill 202.
Trumpeted by many as a boon to personal liberty, the legislation would have lifted the helmet requirement for riders 21 and older when they weren't travelling on interstate highways.
"In terms of lives and of dollars, the cost of repealing Missouri's helmet law simply would have been too high," Nixon said in a written statement. "By keeping Missouri's helmet law intact, we will save numerous lives, while also saving Missouri taxpayers millions of dollars in increased health care costs. Keeping our helmet law in place was the safe and cost-effective choice for Missouri."
When the bill passed in late April, the governor's office was inundated with e-mails and letters, most of them urging Nixon to sign the legislation.
At the same time, law enforcement and health officials clamored against it, claiming a lax helmet law would spur a rise in motorcycle-related fatalities.
The Missouri Department of Transportation joined in, touting a survey indicating 84 percent of Missourians supported the current helmet law, which requires riders to wear a helmet at all times while riding.
In a release announcing the veto, Nixon said safety and containing health care costs were his primary motivations.
The release cited a national study that indicated the repeal of Florida's helmet law in 2002 caused medical costs for motorcycle riders with head injuries to double. The release further suggested that taxpayers wound up shouldering a "significant portion" of these increased costs, and said motorcycle fatalities in Florida "jumped sharply" after the repeal.
News of the veto came as a disappointment to State Rep. Eric Burlison, a Springfield Republican.
Burlison considered the bill's passage in April one of the highlights of his first legislative session, because support for the measure was largely grass roots.
"It was basically citizens up there trying to get the law changed," Burlison said. "To me, the passage of that bill was the antithesis of what was the norm."
Similar motorcycle helmet bills have been debated in previous years, but they had never cleared the legislature. This year's measure moved through relatively easily, but it encountered resistance after Nixon began deciding whether to endorse it.
To Burlison, the manner in which the bill passed was less important than his qualms with the philosophy behind the helmet law.
"It's not the job of government to legislate the safety of individuals," Burlison said. "Our job is to protect and defend the constitution, which includes upholding people's individual liberties."
Joe Kastendieck agrees, but supported Nixon's veto nonetheless.
"I don't like big brother, but there are some things we have to have him do," said Kastendieck, a Springfield retiree.
He came to that conclusion 32 years ago, on a Stone County roadway. A motorcycle enthusiast, Kastendieck was riding his Honda Gold Wing one day in 1977 when he flipped it.
He broke his shoulder, collar bone and several ribs -- not his head.
"I hated that helmet -- my head used to itch," the man remembered Thursday. "If it hadn't been for that law, I wouldn't have worn it."
For the second time since 1993, motorcycle enthusiasts were successful this year in passing such a repeal through the Legislature, only to be stymied by the veto of a Democratic governor.
In 1993, then-Gov. Mel Carnahan vetoed a similar bill.
Pete Rahn, Missouri's director of the department of transportation, had been lobbying Nixon hard to veto the bill. In a news conference last month, Rahn pointed to a survey that said Missourians overwhelmingly want motorcyclists to wear helmets. Rahn said repealing the law will lead to deaths, based on highway statistics that show riders without helmets are more likely to die.
"He has saved lives today," Rahn said of Nixon, calling his veto "courageous and compassionate."
Pete Rahn Director MO DOTUntil today, Nixon had been mostly silent on the issue. He disputed statements from advocates for the law who said that the governor had given them assurances he would let the bill become law. And he chided Rahn for spending public money on a lobbying effort. Rahn's actions caused Nixon to veto $33,000 in MoDOT's budget, the same amount of federal money the transportation department had spent on the survey.
In the end, though, Nixon ended up on Rahn's side.
And that left members of the Freedom of the Road Riders, the motorcycle group that has led the push for the helmet repeal, feeling jilted.
"I talked to the governor’s office last week," said Rick Gish, president of the Franklin County Local 42 chapter of the motorcycle group. "They assured me that it was going to ride. I’m very disappointed. We fought hard for this for several years."
Gish said that Nixon told members of his group that he would neither veto the bill nor sign it, but let it sit on his desk until it became law. Nixon has disputed that characterization.
The bill passed easily in the Senate, 23-6, but had a tighter margin in the House, 93-65, meaning lawmakers might have a tough time overturning Nixon’s veto when they return to session in September. Lawmakers who favored the bill said that it wasn’t government’s job to protect motorcycle riders from themselves.
The law would have allowed motorcyclists to choose whether or not to wear helmets when on most Missouri roads except for interstates.
While Nixon had chided Rahn for spending public money to lobby him on the issue, he cited some of the same figures Rahn used in arguing that repealing the helmet law would be a bad decision. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, he pointed out, says that wearing helmets reduces the likelihood of a fatality by 37 percent. Nixon specifically pointed to statistics that show Florida’s motorcycle-related deaths spiked after that state repealed its helmet law.
Nixon also pointed to the increased costs of caring for motorcyclists injured while not wearing helmets as one of the reasons he vetoed the bill.
Jonathan Adkins, communications director for the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, said he hoped Nixon’s veto would have an effect on other states facing similar decisions.
